1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle air conditioner having a rotary door for switching an air outlet mode.
2. Description of Related Art
In a conventional vehicle air conditioner described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,564,979, as shown in FIG. 4, a heater case 100 has therein a foot air passage 101, a face air passage 102 and a defroster air passage 103 which respectively communicate with a foot air outlet, a face air outlet and a defroster air outlet opened into a passenger compartment. Further, a rotary door 110 for switching the three air passages 101, 102, 103 is disposed in the heater case 100, and openings 111 are provided in a circular arc-shaped outer peripheral surface. Therefore, by moving the openings 111 in a circumferential direction with a rotation of the rotary door 110, the three air passages 101, 102, 103 are selectively opened and closed. However, in the convention air conditioner, when a foot mode, a foot/defroster mode or a defroster mode is selected, it is impossible to open a side face air outlet.
In recent years, for improving defrosting performance of a side windshield, it is desired to always open a side face air outlet so that air is always blown from the side face air outlet. For always opening the side face air outlet in the conventional air conditioner having the rotary door 110, both side face air passages 104 communicating with the side face air outlet may be provided at both sides of the face air passage 102 so that air is supplied to the side face air passages 104 even in an air outlet mode except for a face mode, as shown in FIG. 5. Specifically, side face openings 112 always communicating with the side face air passages 104 in any one air outlet mode may be provided on the outer circumferential surface of the rotary door 110 at both sides in an axial direction to correspond to the side face air passages 104.
However, when the side face openings 112 are provided in the outer circumferential surface of the rotary door 110, a part of the side face openings 112 of the rotary door 110 communicates with the defroster air passage 103 and the foot air passage 101 during a face mode. Therefore, during the face mode, air is leaked from the defroster air outlet and the foot air outlet. For preventing the air-leaking, a part of the defroster air passage 103 and a part of the foot air passage 101 may be closed. However, in this case, the defroster air passage 103 and the foot air passage 101 become narrower, and an air amount blown from each of the defroster air outlet and the foot air outlet becomes smaller.